Macaroni Necklace
by queenitsy
Summary: Kendall loves his little sister.


_Macaroni Necklace_  
**Rating/Warnings:** G. No warnings!  
**Disclaimer: **Still not mine.  
**Summary:** Kendall loves his little sister.

* * *

"Kendall?" Katie leaned over the back of the couch between Kendall and Carlos, sounding totally innocent and unassuming. Which, Kendall knew full well, meant she wanted something.

"How much?" he asked.

"Twenty bucks?"

He sighed and dug out his wallet while his friends tried (not very hard) to stifle their snickering. He handed her a crinkled bill and she grinned and disappeared again. He wondered where she was going to spend it, but knew better than to ask.

"Your little sister has you whipped," James said from the other end of the couch.

Kendall nudged Carlos, who reached over and smacked the back of James' head. "If I don't give it to her, she'll just trick me out of it anyway," Kendall pointed out. Which seemed totally reasonable to him. So really, he wasn't sure why his friends were all laughing.

* * *

Kendall Knight was smart. He wasn't a genius or anything, but he was the kind of smart that was much more practical: by third grade, Kendall had realized that a kid could get away with anything if he claimed it was part of a science experiment ("We didn't mean to set the garage on fire, Mrs. Diamond, but we were testing the scientific properties of aerosol in an enclosed space, and..."). By fifth grade, Kendall knew that he was smarter than his mother, and she would buy absolutely any story he concocted ("...its owner is in the FBI, deep cover, and could be gone for years. If we don't keep the puppy, who will? It's our _patriotic duty_, Mom."). And by seventh grade, Kendall knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that his combination of reasonable intelligence and lots of charm meant that he'd never need to put any serious effort into school (or at least not until college).

But Kendall, smart as he was, had nothing on Katie. Katie was a straight-up genius. She'd taught herself to read when she was three, and was doing long division in her head by second grade. She and Logan had epic scrabble matches where they covered the board in words like _defenestration_ and _peripatetic_, and Kendall only knew they weren't making things up because he was the referee with the dictionary. But Katie wasn't just book-smart; she had all of Kendall's savvy, _plus_she could do the wide-eyed innocent little girl thing. Katie's combined genius and people-reading skills meant she was going to change the world someday. Possibly by taking it over. Kendall wouldn't bet against that, anyway.

* * *

"Um," Kendall said. "What's with the uniform?"

Katie smoothed down the brown skirt, straightened her sash, and said, "I'm a Girl Scout."

"Since when?" Logan laughed. "Aren't Girl Scouts supposed to be nice?"

Kendall nudged Carlos, who obligingly leaned over to smack the back of Logan's head, which lead to a slap fight. As they whacked each other, Kendall said, "I didn't know you were into... you know, little girl stuff. Or is this another Mom-wants-you-to-be-normal thing?"

She rolled her eyes. "Something like that."

"Well, you look... cute," he finally said, as sincerely as possible.

"Oh, shut up," she answered.

* * *

Kendall had started walking Katie home from school when she was in first grade and he was in seventh. He walked from his middle school over to her elementary school, met her at the back door, and held her mittened hand all the way home. Or, when she could talk him into it, he gave her a piggyback ride.

He measured their school year by the art projects Katie carried home: fall was laminated golden leaves, construction paper jack'o'lanterns, and turkeys made from tracing her fingers. Winter was paper snowflakes and messily-painted Christmas tree ornaments; spring was a flower pot with her hand print on it.

Kendall's birthday was in February. She presented him with a macaroni necklace. (Even she knew it was cheesy, but she hadn't been able to win enough lunch money from playing Go Fish with her classmates before she got caught, so she couldn't buy him anything.) Kendall rolled his eyes when the guys laughed as she made him put it on.

But he still hung it up on his bedroom wall and kept it until they packed to move to LA.

* * *

Kendall got up to get a glass of water around 2 AM and stopped in the living room. Katie was lying on the couch with a reading light and a dog-eared, tattered copy of _The Secret Garden_, which sent his big brother spidey senses tingling. Katie read plenty, but mostly adult novels and political blogs, and he knew for a fact that she'd read _The Secret Garden_at least three times before. It was like comfort food for her, but in literary form.

"Hey," he said, and she scooted over to make room for him on the couch. "Can't sleep?"

She shrugged. She'd had trouble sleeping on and off since she was a toddler, but had stopped telling their mother about it years ago.

"Homesick?" he guessed.

"Please," she said, dripping disdain. "Here I've got a pool, a premium cable package, and a new bunch of patsies for poker every week. What could I possibly be missing?"

"Hmmm." He tucked an arm around her and despite her eye rolling, she curled up next to him. "Let me think. This week is the all-school snowball fight, isn't it?"

"Remember last year when Cassandra Bell let you think she was going to kiss you?" Katie asked.

"Yeah, and she shoved a giant snowball down the back of my coat instead," Kendall said, laughing. Of course, he didn't tell Katie that Cassandra _had_let him kiss her that night, and it had been inside where they were warm and dry, which was even better.

Katie nudged him with her knee. "What do you want for your birthday?"

"To play center for the Minnesota Wild," he answered, which was the same thing he answered every year.

She rolled her eyes. "If you won't tell me, you're getting another Macaroni necklace," she threatened, and reached for her book.

Kendall took the unspoken hint and took the book from her hand. She didn't object, just lay her head on his shoulder as he flipped to the page she'd marked when he'd sat down, and began reading out loud.

* * *

Kendall's dad had split when he was only seven, and Katie was still a baby. Nine years later, Kendall only had a few scattered memories of him, which were becoming less and less concrete as time went by. Which was fine with Kendall, who had decided ages ago that if his dad didn't want them, screw him, because Kendall didn't need a dad anyway.

He didn't really remember the divorce itself at all - just the weird, eerie feeling when his mom told him that they were changing their last name to Knight, because it was her maiden name. But he'd felt better about it when she painted over their old name on the mailbox, handed him a brush, and let him paint on their _new_ name in his second-grader's scrawl. That made it _his_mailbox.

There was no cliché moment when someone told Kendall he had to be the man of the house or anything. That would have been totally unfair to ask of a kid who was still going on eight.

Besides, it wasn't like Kendall had needed someone to tell him.

* * *

Gustavo didn't really care about Kendall's seventeenth birthday, so instead of partying, he spent the day harmonizing and getting sweaty learning new choreography - but the guys all got him ridiculous gag gifts, and Gustavo _did_give them 15 minutes to eat ice cream and sing him happy birthday, since it made for a good behind-the-scenes video. Jo was shooting a CW pilot up in Vancouver, but she texted him. His mom made all of his favorites for dinner, and cake from scratch with home made peanut butter frosting.

After cake was presents (a few books, a few CDs, a tie, sneakers, a new hockey mask) and a few rounds of dome hockey, from which Kendall emerged victorious. He turned around to high five Katie, and found her holding a package wrapped in gold paper. "For you, brother dear."

He grabbed it from her and opened it gleefully, tore open the box inside, and found... "Holy... Katie, is this a game jersey?" He pulled it out, revealing the used Minnesota Wild jersey.

"Yup," she said, and then pointed to one of the shoulders. "Signed."

There was the scrawled signature from Mikko Koivu - the Wild's center and first-ever captain. "Whoa," Kendall managed.

"Better than a macaroni necklace," she answered, grinning.

"How did you even afford that?" James asked.

Katie shrugged. "Borrowed twenty bucks, invested wisely, made some good choices... made a lot of money. Anyway, I'd better go to bed. Happy birthday." She kissed Kendall's cheek and started off towards her room, then paused. "Uh, if you guys hear anything about a Girl Scout Cookie sales booth that actually turned out to be the front for an elaborate cookie-based Ponzi scheme, you know nothing, okay? Oh, Kendall, I have the twenty bucks I owe you."

"I thought schemers never repaid the investors," he said.

"Good call. Never mind. Night!"

Kendall laughed and held the jersey up over his chest and smirked over at the guys. "My little sister is awesome," he informed them.

And it was really, really true.

_Reviews, anyone ? :)_


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